Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Cleveland Tiffany

Art Nouveau was the French and English term for an international decorative style that flourished for the generation before World War I. The Germans called it Jugendstil (Youth style), the Russians Modern, other nations had similar names for this popular current.The French initially referred to this after the first great artist of the movement, Alfons Mucha, Style Mucha. The American most celebrated was Louis Tiffany.

The grandson of Jeptha Wade, chief of Western Union Telegraph and a founder of Lake View Cemetery, paid for a chapel to honor his grandfather. The interior of Wade's chapel was all Tiffany, including two large allegorical murals. Jeptha Wade II bought this window ,'The Flight ofSouls', for Wade Memorial Chapel at Lake View. Before it was installed, Louis Tiffany won the gold medal at 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris for it. This exposition was a successful display of Art Nouveau.

“The Recording Angel”. 1885.

Cleveland's oldest congregation is First Presbyterian, which is called Old Stone Church, and is on the Public Square. It has four tall Tiffany windows.

“The Sower”. 1930.

“The Good Shepherd”.1915.

“I am the resurrection, and the life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live.” from John xi. 25. 1930.

from the Good Shepherd window

Not every window has a maker's mark. Now, Tiffany and his chemists invented a process of chemical addition to molten glass that made finished glass opalescent, shining with a creamy iridescense, and became quite popular. He called this 'favrile'. This pearl like lustre, as does other stained glass, changes with the quality of light. The color is dynamic. As the seasons change, the windows change. The weather and the time of day change the hue and intensity.

One outside nave wall in this church is a man's width to a fourteen storey building; the other nave wall has Ontario Avenue next to it, and opposite it is a ten storey building. There are electric lamps behind the first nave wall's windows. The full effect of these windows are denied, as are for some other windows.

Not every Tiffany window was quite in the Art Nouveau style, or of opalescent glass. The studio was a business, if a customer was paying for some thing, and wanted a certain design, the goods were produced. A set of eight windows were installed in the new Euclid Avenue Temple in 1912. Many Jewish congregations left the city for the eastern suburbs. Anshe Chesed did so in 1957, and Liberty Hill Baptist came in. Several synagogues became Black churches.

Trinity Anglican/Episcopal Cathedral on Euclid has many windows. Some made for that building, and some from earlier Cleveland Anglican churches, and a few mediæval. Grace Church was a daughter church of the parish, and was demolished. Its Tiffany window is in a side room, not visited by many of the public.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd. 1892.

In University Circle is the Church of the Covenant. Euclid Street United Presbyterian Church merged with Beckwith Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1906, and built a new church in 1909, Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church. The present name came in 1920 when it absorbed Second Presbyterian Church (congregation from 1837). This window was from the Beckwith Church. Windows from 2nd Presbyterian did not come to the Covenant. Across the street is Case Western Reserve U., its Florence Harkness Chapel has several Tiffany windows. My fotos of it and them are lost [previous computer crash].

Pilgrim Congregational (UCC) has two windows flanking their organ. Their new building opened in 1894. Saint Cecelia is the patron saint of music. She is portrayed with pipes.

In nearby Elyria, the First Congregational Church has four pictorial Tiffany windows after Heinrich Hoffman paintings. Two of the windows are flanked by ornamental companion windows.

A closed church (former Millionaire's Row), a few feet away from the Anshe Chesed synagogue has a possible Tiffany window; originally, Church of the Epiphany Reformed Episcopal 1899, closed as Euclid Avenue Church of God. The town limits used to be, what is now E. 55th, and then E.79th and had several new churches immediately past 79th. Now much of Euclid Avenue beyond E. 79th is Cleveland Clinic, and they want more property.

The First Unitarian Church [again, on Euclid Avenue] nearby used to have eight Tiffany windows. One is at the Western Reserve Historical Society, others were also sold or lost.

I have recently read, that, St. Paul's on Euclid and E.40 when it was an Anglican church, before it moved to the Heights had Tiffany windows that are lost. I have been there and it has 19th century American painted glass, and some newer Catholic windows.

Euclid Avenue Baptist Church was built in 1871 and demolished in 1961. It had a couple of Tiffany windows, considered lost. Now, sometimes lost means stolen, sometimes forgotten to look or find someone who knows, or some paper that has it described.

The Cleveland Art Museum has several Tiffany objects, including this window (c. 1900) from a

private house that was razed. It is exhibited in a narrow space. The resultant foto caused by curvature from my camera lens causes an aberration in the two dimensional image.

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